Conventional celestial-aided navigation includes correcting for drift in inertial sensors. For example, conventional celestial aiding has been used to correct for yaw/heading and tilt errors in inertial measurements. This conventional celestial-aiding corrects for yaw/heading and tilt errors by measuring the angle between a star tracking sensor and a distant star. This measured angle can be provided to a navigation-solution to correct for errors in yaw/heading and tilt. Thus, this conventional celestial-aiding provides only attitude (i.e., not position) updates.
Other conventional celestial aiding has been used to provide position correction, however, this conventional celestial aiding requires highly precise alignment knowledge and stability between the celestial aid and the inertial sensors. The precise alignment and stability is required because the angle between the star tracking sensor and a distant star is translated to position based on the angle between the star tracking sensor and the local vertical axis. Since the local vertical axis is measured by the associated inertial measurement unit (IMU), the orientation between the star tracking sensor and the IMU must be known very precisely. Typically, such highly precise alignment and stability between the star tracking sensor and the IMU is achieved by mounting the star tracking sensor and the IMU in close proximity to the same platform so that the IMU moves (e.g., rotates) with the star tracking sensor.